Fileserver/Exchange Backup/Tape-Archive Best Practice

[soda39]

Hello community,

Just wanted to get another angle of view from other professionals. Our challenge is that we have legal requirements to archive data from our fileserver (baremetal), on tape, for 7-10 years and also had some cases of restoring documents from 2-3 years ago, therefore file-level restore from tape is needed.
This question also relates to Exchange, also baremetal and a bit more tricky when thinking about application awareness and log truncation, similar legal requirements, also single-item recovery from tape needed. Or like we can at least just restore one single database to the repo and explore it with the explorer.

I tried to formulate it quiet flat, to not point into some solutions we already think of. And at this point it doesn't really matter how long in the past we can search for single-items on tape, that said, we just searching for/evaluating all possibilities.

How do you guys achieve this with Veeam? I am excited about your implementations.

Thanks a lot and BR

[Mildur]

Hello Soda39

Item Level recovery from Exchange machine backups is not possible from Tape. You need to restore the entire exchange server back from tape to a repository or as a VM. From there you can use the databases for Item Level restores. Mount them with a Veeam Explorer.

For the File Server, you must use a File-To-tape Job. Or you can use a NAS Backup Job to protect your Fileserver and write the NAS Backup to tape (v12 required). Both options allow you to restore single files without restoring the entire machine first.

An alternative to tape could be using a SOBR with Object Storage (capacity tier and archive tier). Your GFS backups can be moved to cheap archive storage on Azure or AWS. From there, item level restore is possible.

Best,
Fabian

[soda39]

Hi Mildur,

Thank you for your reply.
Exchange:
What about the idea of SMB sharing the locations of the Exchange databases and doing a VSS snapshot of those SMB shares? As far as I know Exchange uses a specific VSS Writer designed for Exchange, at least I understood it that way, correct me if I am wrong. So one specific database could be restored instead of the whole server.

Fileserver:
Yeah, we already thought of that too and also come to the conclusion that we need to do so - VSS snapshot of the SMB shares. But we tried to avoid that.

BR

[Mildur]

Hi BR

This may be possible.
But I wouldn't use SMB shares. You can add your exchange server as a managed File Server and then create a File To Tape job to backup the folder with the exchange DB and log files.

Always test the entire process to make sure you can restore your data.

Best,
Fabian

[soda39]

Hi,

What do you think are the disadvantages of using VSS snaptshot of a SMB share in that case?
That's also a possibility, but how does it behave when thinking of application awareness, I then may have an inconsistent state right?

Thanks in advance.

Best regards.

[Mildur]

Doing a file backup from a managed fileserver server also uses VSS.
Using SMB shares is more complex. And it opens a new access point to your data. I wouldn't do SMB, if I can install a small agent on the server itself.

Best,
Fabian

[soda39]

Okay, wasn't aware of that. So when I am adding a machine in Files -> Microsoft Windows for example and target a folder in a Files To Tape job, it does use VSS, did I understand that correctly?

So I could backup with the agent to disk, exploring those in the console, and do a separate File To Tape job like above, with VSS, without creating share etc.?

Best regards.

[Mildur]

You need to add it as a managed file server for a NAS backup job. Not in "Files > Microsoft Windows".
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

Then you can use NAS or File to backup jobs to protect those database files with VSS.
VSS is enabled by default on managed windows file servers. You can check it in the backup console in this menu (Manage volumes):



Best,
Fabian

[soda39]

Oh, okay, I see. Thanks a lot. Will test this asap!

BR Daniel

[soda39]

Hi again,

Configured everything, everything is fine, but the Backup Job is failing over to direct backup (on the Exchange) with "Cluster Shared Volume VSS is failed at VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT. The writer's timeout expired between the Freeze and Thaw events."
Any ideas? Our Fileserver is port of the exact same FW-Rule, 101%, all needed ports are configured, and the Fileserver works, no VSS issues. I also never saw this error.

Thanks in advance.

BR

[Mildur]

Hi BR

Timeout with VSS could come from slow disks responses, antivirus software or other backup sessions (Veeam or other vendor) blocking the VSS writer.
Please open a case with our customer support to troubleshoot the issue. Don't forget to share the case number with me.

Thanks,
Fabian

[soda39]

Hi,

After failover to direct backup, it also fried one of you databases. Opened a support case #02968376.

BR Daniel